Daphna Poznanski-Benhamou's election win overturned due to irregularities in campaign financing • Poznanski-Benhamou was elected to represent the "eighth district" which represents French voters in Israel, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Malta and Cyprus.

Yoni Hirsch

Au contraire: Daphna Poznanski-Benhamou will not be a member of parliament this session.

Israeli-French lawyer Daphna Poznanski-Benhamou's election to the French parliament was overturned on Friday due to irregularities in her campaign financing.

The French Constitutional Council also decreed that Poznanski-Benhamou was barred from running in national elections for a year. The council declared that she had transferred funds directly to her campaign, instead of using a fiscal agent, as France requires.

Poznanski-Benhamou was elected to represent the "eighth district" which represents French voters in Israel, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Malta and Cyprus. Last year, she was elected as an overseas representative of her district, the southern Mediterranean region, to the French parliament.

Poznanski-Benhamou, 63, has lived in Tel Aviv for 20 years. She was born in French Algeria, grew up in Marseilles and received her law degree in Nice. She founded the Association Démocratique des Français en Israël in 1991 and is an active member of the French Socialist Party.

In the last election, she ran against Valérie Hoffenberg, France's envoy to the Middle East and a member of the Union for a Popular Movement Party. Poznanski-Benhamou received about 56 percent of the vote.